


Virgin Sacrifices ...are so last year

by chailover



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: avengerkink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chailover/pseuds/chailover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Avengerkink:<br/>Prompt: Steve gets captured by some cult/voodoo bad guy or whoever you can think of for their virgin sacrifice! They can summon what they want and kill Captain America at the same time, two birds with one stone.<br/>They just didn't take into account Tony Stark's firm belief that no one should die a virgin.<br/>Cue Avengers rescuing Steve and Tony making sure it never ever happens again.<br/>*super duper bonus points if you can make it so that Tony and Steve aren't established*</p><p>Originally prompted <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/1854.html?thread=206142#t206142">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virgin Sacrifices ...are so last year

**Author's Note:**

> This got so far away from me, I still don't know what happened. Beware of fluff.

**

The first time was hilarious because there was a dumpy guy in a weird robe and a kooky hat, a bunch of confused cultists, and a nearly naked Steve stepping down from the sacrificial altar after snapping his restraints with a very impressive show of strength. He told the woman clinging to his leg (whether she was trying to hold him back or hump it, jury’s still out), “Please stop that, ma’am,” very politely and leveled the patented Captain America stare at the head-cult guy.

The guy flailed.

Steve said, “Please cease and desist, sir. You’re under arrest.”

And Tony thought that was that - Clint would have a field day teasing about Steve’s politeness in the face of incompetent fanatics and near nudity, everyone else got a chance to admire the meaning of ‘peak of physical perfection’, and they were back in time for movie night. No fuss, no muss.

(Tony would NOT think about the first few hours of pure panic and adrenaline, where the rest of the team instantly came together with cold and terrifying intent the moment SHIELD called and told them that Captain America had been kidnapped on his way back from a briefing. Tony blowing off boarding meetings was pretty standard, but Clint and Natasha had been on another mission, one that they ended swiftly and with extreme prejudice. It was probably a good thing that it wasn’t something that required much delicacy.

He told Thor the first time they met that he did NOT like it when people took his stuff, and yes, the Avengers were not ‘stuff’ but they were _his_. If the cultists hadn’t been as incompetent as they were, he would’ve blown them sky high and wouldn’t’ve felt a moment’s remorse.)

Natasha had a take-away from unsuccessful kidnapping attempt number one: a bible-sized tome that was on a stand by the head cult guy, containing lots of occult-looking diagrams and gibberish. Well, actually, it turned out to be a mash-up of Latin, Klingon, and old Norse, but it read like gibberish to him. Tony pretty much forgot about it until the next time Steve went missing.

Two more kidnapping attempts of varying levels of competence and nudity spurred their resident Latin specialist and other SHIELD linguists to make a serious attempt at cracking the book. The debriefing from that was pretty hilarious too.

“Captain, a word?” Natasha asked discreetly at the Debriefing that Shall Go Down in History (Tony’s name for it) and Steve gave her a confused look before following her to the corner of the room while the rest of them goofed off waiting for Coulson to start the meeting. Tony pretended he didn’t care and even managed to carry on two conversations at once (snarking with Clint and having a highly involved discussion on astro-thermal-nuclear physics with Bruce), but he did notice the tips of Steve’s ears turning red from whatever Natasha said.

“No,” Steve said, loudly enough to be heard by the rest of the room. “The team gets the truth.”

Turned out the book was some sort of demon-tome - why was Tony even surprised, that was his life now - and that meant the latin and maybe old norse made sense but what the hell was up with the Klingon?

“It’s not Klingon, Stark,” Natasha said, rolling her eyes.

“It totally is!” Tony insisted, pointing to a passage. Bruce peered at it and nudged at his glasses.

“It almost is,” he said calmly, running a finger over the passage Tony was jabbing at. “But look here, and there. That’s not the right conjugation.”

Tony looked again, rotated the book 90 degrees as if that would make it better. It didn’t. “Well, damn.” The book just lost like, 500 points for coolness.

Coulson cut through their mutual nerd session with a discreet cough. “Anyway, the book?”

Natasha was too cool to roll her eyes again, but Tony could totally tell she wanted to. “Thor?”

Thor nodded, “I have perused the volume, and gleaned some understanding of our enemies’ intent, if not every nefarious detail. The book doth state that a most terrible and awesome power from the fiery depths of a pit of suffering and horror could be summoned, to be unleashed upon the summoner’s foes, leading to their utter and complete ruin.”

“Okay, so they were trying to call up...a demon from hell?” Clint drawled. “Better than an alien army from outer space, I guess.”

“Verily.” Thor boomed. “Although it appears fortunate that this spell contains many elements of obscure and arcane origins and sources, and require a most rare sacrifice.”

“What do you mean?” Clint asked.

So, Thor told him.

Natasha _did_ roll her eyes this time, at Steve’s tomato-red face and at Tony and Clint’s exaggerated antics - like rolling on the floor laughing. “You wanted to tell them the truth,” she reminded Steve as he covered his face with one hand, as if Steve should have really known better than to entrust the truth with the two members of the team with the mental age of fifteen. Bruce looked mostly sympathetic but also slightly amused. Thor looked uncertain.

“Is this a subject of great humor on Midgard?” He asked, puzzled.

“No, no.” Tony wheezed. “Seriously, we laugh because we love. Really.”

Clint’s guffaws eventually died to snickers, and stopped altogether after Natasha jabbed him with an elbow. “Er, right. Sorry, I second what Stark said.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Tony said after he and Clint managed to stop laughing. “Everyone wants you naked and on an altar because you still have your V-card? Because that makes you the most virtuous and pure person on the planet, and that’ll summon the biggest bad?”

“Seems so.” Natasha said, her tone almost bored. Tony had to admire that, _nothing_ phased the Black Widow. Steve was still blushing, but shrugged a little, like a non-verbal ‘as you say’.

“Well, then,” Tony clapped his hands together, and ignored the little warning glares that Bruce was sending his way. “There’s a really easy way to take care of that! I have this number to this really excellent escort service-“

“Tony, no.” Steve said firmly. It was echoed almost exactly by Bruce.

Tony went on, “-and everyone they’ve sent had been hot as hell, not too dumb, and super discreet. They can almost give Natasha here a run for her money-“ Perfectly on cue, Natasha gave him the most unimpressed look, _ever_ , Tony was almost impressed by it.

“No, Tony.” Steve repeated, just as firmly.

“Not that I think you _need_ an escort service,” Tony mused, realizing somewhere that what he was implying might be misconstrued. “Because, have you looked in a mirror recently? I’m sure if you went out on the streets and ask practically anyone, they’d be happy to take care of this little issue-“

“Tony...” Bruce groaned.

“-Not that I’m saying it’s ‘little’, ha-ha,” a chorus of groans now from the team, “but seriously. I think the President was turned on a tad when you two shook hands, and he’s happily married. I have it on good authority from a lesbian that she’d ‘tap that’ in an instant-“

“Tap that?” Steve asked, a little bit helplessly. Tony would have steam-rolled on, but Steve’s learned a few lessons in the time between their verbal evisceration match on the helicarrier and now, and shook him a bit by the shoulders. “Stop, Tony, just stop,” but while he sounded like he seriously wanted Tony to stop, he didn’t sound angry, which was a somewhat novel thing and actually made Tony pause. “I’m not going to go out there and-“ and Steve reddened again, which was all sorts of hilarious and adorable, “-and-“

“You can’t even say it!” Tony crowed.

“And _have sex_ ,” Steve enunciated very clearly, even though everyone looked surprised that his ears haven’t flamed their way off his head already, “just because some hocus-pocus book says that’s the way to world domination, and that’s that. Now please, just shut up, Stark.”

And Tony would’ve taken offense because this was usually the sort of thing that would set him off on a rampage of rage and loathing and general unpleasantness, except Steve had actually sounded _fond_ , and lord knows Tony had no idea what to do with that. He didn’t offer up the team (himself) to help with Steve’s virginity problem for a _reason_.

“All right,” he said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender (palms facing each other because he’s not armored now but habits die hard), but couldn’t resist adding, “if that demon gets summoned, I get to say ‘I told you so’.”

**

“I know what I said, but really, here’s the number. They’re _realllllly_ discreet.”

“ _Tony_...”

“Brave, Stark, brave. Hey, Cap, if you don’t want it, can I have it - OW!”

“Thank you, Agent Romanov.”

“My pleasure, Captain Rogers.”

**

“You know,” Tony said conversationally as he lifted the faceplate of his armor. Steve looked up at him, and huffed a breath, blowing a stray strand of blond hair out of his face. “This was funny, like, _three_ kidnappings ago.”

“I know.” Steve grimaced as he accepted Tony’s grudgingly offered hand up. Around them, the abandoned warehouse with its robotic former inhabitants (and didn’t Tony pitch a fit at that - if they were going to make robots, they shouldn’t SUCK) smoldered. Steve had a scrape across his cheek that probably would be gone by dinner-time and a cut across his ribcage that definitely _won’t_ be disappearing anytime soon. “Ow.”

“Here,” Tony took out a spare shirt from one of the many compartments of the armor, because the general theme of the kidnappings had always involved copious nudity or near nudity, and never let it be said that he wasn’t a learning creature. (Also, Bruce could _always_ use a shirt when he de-Hulks, so shirt-carrying was a go, all around.)

“Thanks.” Steve pulled on the shirt even with the cut still bleeding sluggishly. He only had tattered pants on in addition to that, and no grocery store was going to let him in without shoes (then again, they might, because. Well. _Captain America_.), but he was mostly presentable if one ignored the blood and bruises and smudges of ash.

Thor dropped through the half-caved in ceiling and with a dramatic flare of his blood red cape, landed by Tony and Steve. “Captain! We have contained the perimeter and shown these dastardly cowards the error of their ways!”

Tony eyed the way the alien/god hefted his hammer, Steve just looked tired. “Awesome. If everything’s under control, I’m gonna fly Cap over to Medical, then.”

“Acknowledged,” Coulson said over the comms, even as Steve protested.

“I should help with the clean-up.” He said earnestly.

Tony and Thor gave the warehouse a look-over. Besides the piles of dead robots, the ceiling was half-caved, as previously mentioned. The walls looked like a good sneeze from Fury would knock them over, and the ground was basically made up of debris in the shape of craters. “Pretty sure we’ll just need a demolition team for clean-up,” Tony said. “Back me up here, big guy.”

“Aye, the man of Iron is correct.” Thor boomed, because Thor was awesome like that. “Our valiant team shall be more than sufficient to bring this glorious battle to a satisfactory end. You should see to your health and comfort first.” He clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder - must’ve been watching his strength, because Steve barely even wavered under it. “Trust in your Shield-brethren, good Captain.”

Steve knew when he was being overruled, and merely sighed. “Okay. Head check, before I go.”

Tony rolled his eyes but Natasha dutifully murmured a “Romanov here,” and Clint chuckled and said, “still here, still alive,” over the comms. There was a slight pause until the line crackled just a little and Bruce said, uncertainly, “er, I’m here. And are these robot guts?”

And Steve could obviously see that Thor was none the worse for wear and Tony was wearing armor made of technology that was far superior to whatever had built the robots. “Hulk had a lot of fun smashing.” Tony confirmed, holding one arm out. “Now, time for your medical evac, Cap.”

The flight up was quiet and slightly strained. Tony was willing to bet that Steve barely felt the cut along his ribs or the bruise on his forehead, but neither of them would forget the grunt of pain from Clint over the comms when he was hurled against the wall from a robot exploding, or the dozen or so terrified civilians they had to evacuate before the robot throwdown.

Before they landed, the medical personnel tiny like toy figures but getting larger on the surface of the helicarrier, Tony said, “Cap...” but didn’t know how to continue.

“...I know.” Steve said grimly.

The words ‘I told you so’ never crossed his lips, but Tony felt like an ass anyway.

**

The team debriefed with Fury while Steve was in Medical, and Fury kicked them all off (kicking and screaming) the helicarrier and presumably, had his debrief with Steve. Tony was on his third cup of coffee and wondering if he should join movie night with the rest of the team or go hammer out the dents in his armor when the elevator opened to admit one slightly subdued Captain America into the main lounge.

The super-secret-super-spy team, the retiring scientist with severe anger management issues, and the Norse god swarmed him with what passed for enthusiastic concern - by that Tony meant Thor boomed, “Friend Steve! I am glad to see you well, you must join us in the evening’s entertainment, this War of Stars film is most delightful!”, Natasha nudged Clint and he scooted over until he was nearly perched on the sectional’s arm, making a large enough spot to sit, and Bruce murmured, “I was just going to get a refill, you want some tea or coffee?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at Tony, who was debating the merits of escaping to his workshop when they were occupied with the team leader, and he gave up. “Okay, head-honcho,” he declared when Steve stammered something about the write-up for the day’s snafu, taking an elbow and steering them both into the living room, “Natasha’s looking kinda stabby, and trust me, you don’t want to cross her when she’s anywhere near your neck. Sit your butt down and let’s watch the damn movie.”

**

Later, when they were all heading off to bed, Steve touched Tony’s elbow and said, “I told Fury...I don’t want anyone else to get hurt...so, I’ll take care of this.”

Tony tried for a flip grin. “Cap, you’re the _only_ one who can take care of this...with some help. You want that number now?”

Steve smiled at him, “No, Tony. Good-night.”

**

“I hate magic!” Tony yelled, throwing his arms up in annoyance, coincidentally sending a few pages of the photocopies of the book into the air.

Bruce adjusted his glasses and sighed, before taking them off completely and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I might have to agree with you on that.”

Steve, Clint and Natasha were out on a minor mission while the rest of them were trying to figure out...for lack of a better word, _perimeters_ to this whole virgin sacrifice thing. It would’ve helped if the two humans (trans-human, post-human, whatever!) out of the trio can read old Norse or demon-tongue or latin fluently, but Tony figured if he could pick up thermonuclear-astrophysics in one night, he and Bruce can make pretty good progress on learning foreign/non-existent languages.

Because it seemed like every crazy would-be world dictator knew about the spell, and had been targeting Steve accordingly, but the Avengers didn’t know _anything_ except for the basics.

“Is the virginity figured in as part of the virtue, or is it a separate variable? Is the power of the demon summoned directly correlated with that? Are multiple inputs allowed? What’s the tolerance level?” Tony huffed. He jabbed at a piece of the paper. “Thor?”

The god tilted his head.

Bruce translated. “Does the book say whether the demon can be summoned because the sacrifice is pure, or because he or she is merely ‘virtuous’? If they sacrifice someone who isn’t pure or virtuous, would the demon still come? Would a less virtuous person summon a less powerful demon? Would a demon come for multiple sacrifices of varying degrees of virtue, or would the demon just not show up if the person or persons are not up to snuff?”

“Yeah, because if they decide Steve’s virtuous enough without being pure, and the demon being summoned is okay with that, then we’ll have the _exact same problem_.” Tony tried to set the paper on fire with his mind - it remained stubbornly unignited. Repulsors, he needed his repulsors. “Or, if the key is virginity, what would stop some psycho from hitting up an elementary school or something?”

“I think the last thing Steve would want is to redirect anyone’s attention to children.” Bruce said grimly. “And they might fit the ‘virtuous’ bill too.”

Tony raised an eyebrow and drawled, “What elementary kids have you been hangin’ out with? Cuz I’ve spent time with a few specimens in my day and they were so far from virtuous, I’d say they’re evil.”

That earned him a chuckle of amusement, which was what he intended (not that kids weren’t evil, because they are so evil).

They work and debate and get nowhere. Steve and the rest of the team came back to find they had migrated from the reading room to the lounge and Tony half-expected the Captain to go out and get started on taking care of his little problem...but weirdly enough, a few hours after he gave up on the demon-tome and went to his lab to work on his armor and the bajillion other projects he had going on, Steve showed up with sandwiches and two sodas.

“Security breach!” Tony said when he noticed the super soldier looking around with interest. Steve had been down here before, but usually the appearances were brief interruptions to remind him about various things: breakfast, lunch, dinner, movie nights, team bonding exercise sessions, briefings, debriefings, and on one memorable occasion, the charity gala they were supposed to attend to save the otters. Yeah, Tony wasn’t sure what was going on with that one either.

“Captain Rogers is authorized to access the workshop, sir.” Jarvis said in a tone that implied if he had actual eyes, he would be rolling them. Steve grinned and set the tray down on a relatively safe corner of the workbench.

“I thought you said you’d give me my clearance back when I brought you that cup of coffee last week - no, Tony, go wash your hands first, do you want to ingest motor oil?”

“A little motor oil never hurt anyone,” Tony muttered but went to wash his hands, because the sandwiches looked delicious. For some odd reason he had thought that Captain America would be good at cooking, but that notion has since then been thoroughly debunked. Not that Steve didn’t know his way around the kitchen, but he was best at the simple stuff - breakfast things like frying up eggs and bacon, boiling water for pasta or other noodles, etc. Anything more complicated than that tend to end property damage.

But, he was surprisingly good at making sandwiches, and Tony never could figure out how the man out of time could make them taste better than something Tony (or some other culinary master) could slap together. Clint might have made a snide comment or two about them being made with lots of love, but Tony was pretty sure it was just the deli mustard.

**

If Tony was a better person, he wouldn’t’ve teased Steve about the fact that he was a virgin, because he was a lot of things but he tried to not be too big of a hypocrite. He already was in the red on that account from his weapon-making days. If he believed that as a consenting, mature adult (okay, some people would argue the mature part...'of legal age’ then) he was allowed to sleep with any number or combinations of other consenting, mature adults, then he really had no grounds to mock someone else for deciding to not do the same.

It actually made him kind of angry that all the idiotic and incompetent would-be world dominators didn’t respect Steve’s choice to not tumble whoever offered (and Tony was sure he had gotten offers, because have you _seen_ the guy? Also, there were those extremely sexy twins who threw themselves at Captain America when he rescued them from a burning building last week) with this whole ‘virtuous and pure’ sacrifice thing. If Steve ended up having sex, it really should be his choice, and not one made because he didn’t want to see anyone else end up as collateral damage to all these kidnapping attempts.

If he was honest, he might admit that he might be harboring a tiny...miniscule...insignificant - oh, who the hell was he kidding? Tony had a huge crush, and it was fine to have it when Steve was being his usual unattainable, icon-of-the-nation, pure self. But now Tony had to think about Steve losing his virginity with someone...Well, that made him kind of angry too.

But it was fine, since Tony was neither a better (good) person, nor an honest one. He hadn’t included the rest of the team in the offer to help Steve with the problem because Steve wouldn’t do anything to risk their team dynamics, and he would never offer himself because Steve could do so much better.

**

The demon-tome continued to be super unhelpful. Incompetent idiots continued to try and kidnap Captain America for a virgin sacrifice, and oddly enough, Steve seemed to have decided that Tony was going to be the one showing him the new foods of the twenty first century.

They had already done the great American staples (pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers - leaving regional variations and specialties outside of New York for later) and most European ones. Tony’s greatest love might be engineering, but he really, really loved food too, so it wasn’t exactly a chore. This week, Steve was on an Asian kick.

“Hm, sushi.”

“Yes!” Tony did a fistpump. “This is gonna be awesome.”

Clint and Thor’s eyes were glued to the giant flatscreen in the main lounge as they did glorious battle (Thor’s words), but Natasha glanced over as Tony and Steve were getting ready to leave, and raised an eyebrow.

“We’re going to go try sushi,” Steve told her, pulling on his jacket. Tony slipped on his sunglasses (Who cares if it’s already dark outside?) and stuffed his feet in his sneakers.

“All-you-can-eat,” because anything else when it comes to people like Steve and Thor and their inhuman metabolism is just going to end in tears, “I know this place where they assign you your own sushi chef and he makes anything you can think up. Anyone else wanna come?”

“Mayhaps another time, friend Tony!” Thor declared without looking away from the TV. “For I am very close to vanquishing Clinton and his nefarious ally, Yoshi!”

“Ohmygod I told you to stop calling me that!” Clint growled, mashing buttons on his controller. As an aside, he yelled, “I’ll pass on the raw fish!”

“It’s not all raw!” Tony yelled back. Bruce had turned down sushi invites before, something about the combination of the expense and the fact that it was raw being unappealing, so he hadn’t bothered to ask on their way up, and Natasha shook her head with another unreadable look at Steve. “Your loss!”

They got a younger sushi chef this time, and Tony ordered one of everything to mess with the guy and also because Steve’s got a super metabolism to go with his super soldier-ness. It turned out as awesome as he expected, because the delicious sushi kept coming and he got to see all of Steve’s hilarious reactions to what he was tasting.

“What _is_ this?” Steve asked, after his first bite of fatty tuna.

“Good, isn’t it?”

“And is this really octopus? It’s not chewy at all!”

“It’s not supposed to be chewy!” The chef said, horrified, his hands pausing from where he was cutting up some salmon for the next order. “Where’ve you been eating your octopus sushi?”

It wasn’t until they were nearly done that Tony realized Steve had been discreetly intercepting the dishes every time the chef forgot about the ‘I don’t like to be handed things’ disclaimer at the beginning of the meal. Steve caught his look and gave him a shy smile, placing the plate of unagi down on the narrow bar and nudging it over, but not without taking a piece first.

“Hey, this is cooked.”

Tony laughed. “Okay, buddy,” he waved to the chef, “Was that all the sushi, then? Next, let’s get one of everything from the kitchens!”

**

The restaurant owners probably were in tears by the time Steve and Tony (but mostly Steve) finished, but the sushi chef waved good-bye to them amicably - either he was predisposed toward being good-natured, or the rounds of beer that Tony bought him paid off. “Thanks. I had a really great time tonight.” Steve said with a smile while they went up the ninety or so stories of Avengers Tower in the special private elevator, and Tony couldn’t help but grin back at him.

“Teppanyaki.” He blurted out, because Steve had loved the cooked food too, and when Steve blinked, he explained, “Next time, I’ll take you. It’s like, the chefs prepare the food in front of you on this iron table-top and they juggle, and stuff.”

Steve looked adorably confused. “Okay?”

“The table top is actually the stove and they douse onion towers with oil before setting it on fire - I’m not explaining it right, but we have to go. It’s like a dinner and a show, two for the price of one!”

Now Steve was laughing, warm and fond and it didn’t feel like he was laughing at Tony at all. “Okay, sounds good.” The elevator doors slid open on Steve’s floor, and before Tony realized what was happening, the blond super-soldier leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against his mouth. Tony froze and Steve murmured, “Good night, I’ll see you tomorrow.” before taking a step back and out of the elevator, still with a little smile and the faintest blush on his face.

Tony’s brain had ground to a complete and utter stop, a full on blue screen of death, but his mouth apparently worked on instinct. “...good night?” he said a few beats later, right as the doors slid closed on the sight of Steve’s smile widening. “Wait, no, I mean, _what_?” he flailed as the elevator started moving again, toward the penthouse floor. “Jarvis, what just happened!?”

Jarvis’s tone was as dry as the desert. “It appears that Captain Rogers kissed you, sir.”

“I know that,” he could still almost feel the warm, gentle pressure against his lips, almost a tickle of breath and the hint of aftershave from Steve. It was definitely a kiss, that wasn’t the issue here. “But _why_?” Tony whined plaintively.

“I would not presume to know, sir. Perhaps Captain Rogers felt that it was now appropriate for the traditional ‘good night’ kiss as the ending to a non-first date.”

“Date?” Tony bleated. “What do you mean, date? We just went out to dinner-”

“Almost every other day, for two weeks, barring Avengers business,” Jarvis supplied, “You have also gone with Captain Rogers to the Museum of Modern Art and the latest Dodgers game.”

“B-but, that was because Pepper couldn’t go with, and he _loves_ the Dodgers, even if they betrayed everything by moving to LA - Those were _dates_?” But wait...he had assumed Steve had asked Pepper first, because he had looked kind of embarrassed when he asked, and he always agreed to going to grab food again really quickly. Tony had thought that Steve was just enthusiastic about food, or the museum, or baseball, but....

He took a deep breath. As much as he wanted to go back down to Steve’s floor and ask him _what the hell!?_ , he had a feeling it wouldn’t end well - either he would say something and irrevocably screw up their friendship and the team, or he would say something that would make Steve give him the sad face, or...

Or he might actually make Steve realize what a terrible, horrible, very bad idea this was, because Tony was a terrible, horrible, very bad person and god, he was degenerating into children’s book talk and he just needed to shut up, right now, in his own brain.

“Jarvis, workshop,” he ordered. He would do the smart, responsible - _adult_ \- thing, for once in his life. He’ll get some work done and talk to Steve in the morning. Maybe Steve would see that this was a bad idea on his own, once he slept on it, because Tony was trying to be better, really, but he wasn’t a saint.

**

Of course, fate had other ideas. Sometime around 3am, when Tony was just really getting elbow deep into the guts of the new Quinjet engine design, they get an assembling call.

And, because it was just his luck, it was the damn robots _again_. This time, someone got the brilliant idea to hit him with an EMP strong enough to completely crash all the systems in the suit and because the comms were down, all he heard was the Hulk’s enraged roar and a crash of thunder from Thor before the robots swarmed him. One hit him so hard that it felt like his brain was rattled inside his skull, which then rattled in his helmet. The pain was sharp and bright for a moment before he blacked out.

**

He woke up and stared at the design on the ceiling. It looked vaguely familiar.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Tony muttered, blinking rapidly and hoping that he was just not seeing straight because he was EMP-ed to hell and back and he had what basically boiled down to the world’s most technologically advanced electromagnet lodged in his chest, which made that EMP thing more relevant. But, no. The ceiling design (and wall design, and floor design, from what he could see by turning his head) remained the same.

“HELLO?!” He shouted, trying to get up and then realizing that he was tied to the table/altar/whatever. “This is the virgin sacrifice seal! You want Captain America for that, and I’m Iron Man. YOU GOT THE WRONG GUY, MORONS!”

There was no response, and he let his head fall back down with a thud. It wasn’t enough that he had that thing with Steve going on, not enough that he got EMP-ed and knocked out, but to be kidnapped by villains of _this_ level of incompetence was just the most massive insult, ever. He focused on the righteous indignation and managed to not completely freak out about the part where his head was pounding and he was only wearing the clothes he had on in the workshop, armor nowhere in sight.

On one hand, they had something that was enough to temporarily disable the suit, and the means to take it off him. On the other hand...Tony twisted his right wrist and felt give in the rope. It was well-tied, tight enough to hold without completely cutting off circulation, but he was arguably the most normal human out of the bunch, has a history of being a kidnapping victim (not that it ever ended well for the kidnappers, really), and he lived with two super secret super spies with more tricks up their sleeves than an airport has baggage. And, well. It was _rope_. Compared to the setups that Natasha and Clint had stuck him in and then taught him to get out of, this was on par with loosening a recalcitrant screw.

Well, he thought as he wiggled and twisted and slowly worked his right hand loose, it was time to live up to his reputation for being the most horrible kidnapping victim, _ever_.

**

The Avengers arrived at the secret hideout of the Right and Left Hand Society about two minutes before things started to blow up.

“ _Tony_.” Bruce groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the distinctive red-and-gold of the Iron Man rose out of the dust-cloud, doing a few victory loops before settling down in front of the quinjet, the roar of the engine only just now starting to quiet down.

“You guys are late!” Tony yelled as the hatch opened, and he popped up his faceplate. “It’s a sad state of affairs when I have to rescue myself when there’s this superhero team just sitting around in my tower, eating all my snacks and drinking all my beer!”

“You’ve set a bad precedent,” Natasha told him coolly as she jogged off the ramp, but tapped him gently in the mostly hidden elbow joint where the armor plating was thin enough to feel through once she was in front of him. She gave him a clinical once-over, eyes lingering only for a second on his face, and nodded minutely. Clint, who was only a step behind her, gave him a thumbs up. “Did you leave anything for us besides clean-up?”

Captain America was also out, holding himself with uncharacteristic stiffness. He never once lost the military bearing, but today he seemed extra tense. Tony waited until Steve ran stony blue eyes over the smoking compound, and when no threats made themselves apparent, asked, “Widow’s right. What are we looking at here?”

“Oh, man,” Tony groaned as Bruce and Thor trooped out. He waited just long enough for Thor to do his usual amicable post-battle shoulder clasp before continuing, “I just - these guys are so incompetent! We’re looking at the stupidest case of villainy, ever. Or, rather, they’re not all that bad by themselves, but them working together, it’s like the worse case of interdepartmental political shitstorm with added attempted world domination.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. It was an expression that all the Avengers were well versed in, for it meant, ‘do I need to hulk out here in order to get some straightforward explanations, or what?’. Its effectiveness was proven and tested.

Tony sighed in the face of the Look. “I don’t think there’s much to clean up, I think the actual people all ran away when I first got my armor back and started blasting. The explosion was for the robots. Seriously, they’re called the Right and Left Hand Society, you’d think they’re a pair of hands sharing a common brain and _talk_ to each other.”

“Team communications, what a concept,” Natasha said without inflection, but he could see the twitch at the corner of her mouth.

“I see you smiling, don’t lie! Anyway, the irony of me advocating better team communications aside, they really are pretty bad. I mean, they had the demon summoning thing set up,” he waved a hand at Steve, “which was obviously supposed to be for him, but then the Right Hand part of the cult grabbed me. Me! I mean, what part of me look like Captain America? And the Left Hand side, they’re the ones with the robots, were all like ‘how dare you attempt to trick us with deviations from the plan’ and I seriously think they might’ve started fighting each other if I hadn’t repulsored them first.”

Steve was still ...odd. Even now, that the danger was past, he seemed wound up as tightly as a spring, his expression staying Captain-America stoic with occasional backslides into relief and...guilt? It wasn’t exactly what Tony was expecting after what happened last night, and wasn’t quite the normal reaction for a successful mission either. “Another cult...?”

“Looks like the same one, or ‘ones’, actually. Probably the cult from the first time and the robots a few weeks ago, throwing their lots in together.” Steve did that thing again, where his eyes slid over to Tony’s face and then quickly jerked away, before going back almost as fast, as if they were attached there by magnets or something. “My god, Cap, you want to say something, spit it out before you hurt yourself!”

“You’re bleeding!” Steve blurted out, sounding upset, but then he visibly got a hold of himself again (which was just odd, because Steve didn’t really ever lose control of himself that often). At least that explained the weird staring. “Why are you - Never mind, you can debrief us on the way back, while we get you looked over. SHIELD’s sending a clean-up crew, they can take care of any stragglers.”

Tony reached up and touched his forehead, not that he could feel anything through his gauntlets, but. Right, the robots had played ball with his head a little, hadn’t they? “It’s just a cut, head wounds always bleed a lot.” He waggled his eyebrows as Natasha rolled her eyes and started not-so-subtly herding him toward the quinjet. “I’ve been reliably informed that my skull is pretty sturdy.”

“It’s thick, that’s what it is,” Clint muttered, then he shrugged. “Okay, all on board in 15 minutes, or we’re leaving without you.”

**

Clint and Natasha flew the quinjet on the return trip, Thor pacing the craft as the only wingman, and even though Bruce claimed the forward section and gave Tony and Steve a lot of Significant Looks after he finished checking Tony over and band-aided whatever was still bleeding, Tony was secretly relieved that Steve kept their conversation strictly to business and the mission.

(There was a moment during the informal debrief, when Steve had looked more like Steve and less like Captain America - a split second where his expression was uncertain, guilty, maybe a little anguished, before the professional superhero face came back - when he mentioned that the Evil Society of Evilness (Tony’s name for them) had in fact, not grabbed Iron Man by accident.

Tony had suspected, because it didn’t make sense to use an EMP on Captain America, but after all the righteous indignation he had earlier, he couldn’t quite figure out how he felt about being used as bait.)

After Fury was satisfied with the video-conference debrief and after everyone gave them the hairy eyeball (one hairy eyeball, in the Director’s case), the Avengers returned without further incident to Avengers’ Tower. Tony wasn’t sure what crawled up their ass and died, it wasn’t like he got himself kidnapped on purpose. And compared to Steve’s recent track record, he wasn’t the one they should be annoyed at.

Before Tony could make his escape down to the workshop though, Steve said, “Tony, can we talk?”

“Er.” Tony replied intelligently. “I mean, sure. Talk is good, talk is money.” He paused by the elevator and struck up his best listening pose. “So, talk.”

Steve blushed a little, which was kind of weird and kind of cute. And maybe reminded Tony of last night. “Maybe not here,” he said diplomatically, blue eyes cutting to the left where Natasha was checking her weapons by the coffee-table and Clint was just out of sight in the alcove by the kitchen. Bruce hadn’t stuck around but he hadn’t hesitated to give Tony yet another significant look before he muttered something about going back to bed. Thor did his usual Hug-and-Run when they got off the quinjet, and the big blond lug was probably already back in the arms of his Dearest Jane.

“Fair enough,” Tony agreed. Aside from his possibly couple hours of unconsciousness, he hadn’t slept in...long enough that he couldn’t remember, and he suspected that if he was going to make a spectacle of himself, it probably would be better if he and Steve didn’t do it with an audience. He nodded to the elevator and Steve followed him in. “Take us to the penthouse floor, Jarvis.” Because if they were having a Serious Conversation (yes, he thought of it with the caps), then he damn well deserved a drink for having to go through it.

The elevator doors closed smoothly and there was the faint sensation of vertigo as they started moving. Tony immediately revised his opinion about the lack of audience - the only sound was of the elevator, and the silence was rapidly approaching awkward.

Because, really, he had no idea what was going on anymore.

“So...” Steve cleared his throat, and stared studiously at the extremely tasteful paneling of the elevator’s interior. That was half the thing driving Tony crazy, the fact that Steve seemed to have lost all ability to look him in the eyes. Call him crazy, but that didn’t seem a good physical cue for ‘I totally want to go out with you!’, it seemed more like the opposite, to Tony. “Um...”

Tony let the silence draw out like taffy, before blurting, “This isn’t going to work, Steve.”

At the same time Steve said, “Are we still on for tomorrow? If you want?”

After a beat, “Wait, what?!” they said at the same time.

The elevator chose that particular moment to glide to a stop, but right before the doors started opening, Steve reached over and slapped a hand on the emergency stop.

Tony gaped, “did you just-“

“Wait, what do you mean, it’s not going to work?” Steve asked insistently.

“That’s for _emergencies_ -“

“Tony!”

Tony blamed it on the lack of sleep and the sudden onset of Serious Conversation. He always got unintentionally honest with a side of verbal diarrhea when that happened. “It’s not going to work! The talk! You can’t even look me in the eye!” he said, maybe a bit more shrilly than he meant to be.

“I’m nervous!” Steve said back, voice also rising. “This is my first time asking someone out!”

“You can just say, ‘Tony, I like you a lot, but as a friend’ like a normal person-“ Tony stuttered to a stop and then his brain kicked in, but on the _wrong track_ , “-and it’s totally not your first time!” he felt it important to point out. “You’ve already asked Aunt Peggy out once, and you kind of asked me out last night already so this isn’t even asking - actually, I think I asked you out but I didn’t mean it as a date at the time - so this is really just _confirmation_ -”

“So you _did_ realize I meant it to be a date - and Tony, I like you a lot, but not as a friend-“

“-even though I don’t know what you’re thinking, cuz we’ve been doing friend things and that would’ve been fine, one more thing in a long line of friend things. _Just_ friend things like going to dinner and visiting places and - and I don’t even know, don’t say that doesn’t sound like just friends-”

“I just _said_ not as friends, do you see me going out to dinner with the rest of the team every night for two weeks-”

“-and how are you doing that?!” Tony finished, because talking around, with, and over him was something only Pepper ever managed.

There was a moment of silence where Tony flailed a little and Steve visibly bit back what he was going to say, because this conversation was going to avalanche again if they didn’t rein it in right away.

Then his brain finally went back to the _right_ track, the relevant track.

“...wait.”

Steve took a deep breath, and started talking over Tony again, this time with his best command voice, as if he had rehearsed the speech in his head non-stop - which Tony suspected was _exactly_ what he did - “I’d understand if you’re having second thoughts, especially since now that the villains seemed to have decided that you’d be a good target, but Tony, I...I do like you, and not just as a friend.” He smiled slightly, a shy, cautious, brave...and fragile thing. Tony realized he would have sworn to a god he didn’t believe in that he would destroy whoever hurt Steve, and even now, when he should _know better_ , he couldn’t. “So, please...let me try and make it work.”

This was wayyy too serious, way too fast. As a well known commitment-phobe, he should’ve shut it down immediately, days ago, even. But all he could muster was a weak grin and a, “this is an awful lot of effort just to have me help with your problem, Cap.”

And anybody could have taken offense to that and Tony wouldn’t’ve blamed them. But Steve...Steve knew him too well. Tony was in SO much trouble. “I thought you were a genius,” he said with the same small quirk to his lips - not the tooth-paste-ad worthy Captain America smile, not the goofy aw-shucks Steve Rogers grin. His hands went to Tony’s shoulders, slid down to grip at his elbows for a second, before clasping his hands, making them still. Tony hadn’t even realized he was moving them. “There are things worth the effort.”

This time there was no question of what was happening. Steve telegraphed clearly, every move declaring ‘I’m going to kiss you now!’, and Tony honestly couldn’t move away mostly because of the same blue-screen-of-death from before, but also because...well, it was a kiss from Steve.

And it was the same soft press of lips against his at first, gentle and curious but not pushy in any way. Tony felt his own eyes fluttering shut - he was much more used to french kissing and tonsil hockey and this - this was nice. Steve released his hands to place a palm lightly at the back of Tony’s neck, and Tony flicked his tongue against the seam of his mouth. The blond huffed a soft moan against his mouth and then kissed back, harder, imitating what Tony had done until they escalated from chaste-good-night-kiss to something much closer to frenching.

By the time Steve pulled back, Tony was gulping for air like he had just ran a five minute mile. “I thought you liked women - oooh,” Tony tried to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head when Steve scraped his teeth gently against the side of his neck, nibbling a little before pressing a kiss on the spot behind his ear. Tony’s hands scrambled for purchase on the super soldier’s wide shoulders. “Not fair, do that again.”

“I do like women,” Steve murmured, and puff of air from the words made Tony shiver. His shoulders shifted under Tony’s hands as he hit the cancel on the emergency stop button, and the elevator doors slid open with a pointed lack of comment from Jarvis. “I also like men.” He flicked his tongue against the lobe of Tony’s ear as they edged out of the elevator, into Tony’s penthouse. “I like _you_.”

“I’m so confused. And turned on.” Tony babbled as Steve chuckled and pulled back just far enough to kiss him again. “Mostly turned on,” he amended after they finally had to stop for breath. “No, no,” he muttered when Steve tried to steer them to the left, and had to kiss Steve again to wipe that expression of dismay off his face. “Bedroom’s on the right. Your right.”

“So, Mr. Stark,” Steve was blushing slightly, but there was no hesitation in his tone as he started backing Tony toward the hallway on the right, hands warm and steady on his hips. “I was hoping you could help me take care of a little problem...”

**

It was a madhouse out in Abandoned Warehouse #4 - the Avengers, minus their captain, were fighting in clusters against various robed cultists and a swarm of robots. As far as Tony was concerned, whoever programmed the robots probably did it while high, and as a result the robots were running into each other and other cultists almost as much as they tried to attack the Avengers. The problem was that there was just too many of them, and they were effectively deadlocked while the head cultist shouted out the words of the summoning spell over Steve’s still body.

The head cultist’s chanting reached a crescendo, and he raised both arms up high as if in benediction (though as far as Tony’s concerned, it’s a curse) and there was a beat of silence as the fighting ground to a halt in anticipation of the end.

A titter of confusion ran through the ranks of the cultists/robots/idiots of the day when no dark portal, no time warp, no infinite abyss opened.

Tony’s communicator crackled on. “Are you getting anything, Iron Man?” Bruce - as Bruce, not as the Hulk - asked over the line. “All the readings are normal from here.”

Iron Man looked a little comical as he raised one gauntlet over the slits of his eyes as if shielding his face from the sun and peered around. “I spy with my little eye: dumb cultists, subpar robots, a bunch of misfit superheroes and no sign of the impending apocalypse. Looks like the requirements of the spell are absolute.”

“Purity over virtue, then?”

“Seems so.” The head cultist was making outraged sputtering noises, and Tony continued, “Then again, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have much virtue left, either...”

“ _Tony_ ,” the rest of the team chorused, with various levels of fondness, exasperation, and embarrassment.

“Wh-What is this insanity!?” The head cultist shrieked, only to choke when Steve’s eyes opened and he tugged at his bonds. They had wised up to the fact that rope wasn’t going to hold any Avenger for long, but while the manacles around Captain America’s wrists were sturdy, the chains groaned with strain for a few seconds before snapping.

“Magic.” Tony said pointedly as he finally deployed the EMP he had been holding in reserve. The robots that had just started attempting attack again all shuddered and then fell still. The remaining cultists looked around at their complete and utter lack of backup from their mechanical friends, then at the various Avengers. “It sucks, right?”

Thor chose this moment to drop dramatically from the sky through the open hole in the warehouse roof, in a flare of blood-red cape and shiny armor, the ground cracking beneath him in a small crater. “Shield-brethren! It would appear as if the nefarious spell of these miscreants is unsuccessful!” he boomed, brandishing his hammer. “Shall we battle, then!?”

Steve, who had stood up and towered over the head cultist, gave the congregated his most severe Captain America look. Tony was on the side of light and good and he felt like he just did something irredeemably bad. He was impressed, not many people could make him feel like that, even less could do it naked.

The remaining cultists quaked and wisely threw their arms up in surrender.

“Well, that’s that.” Tony muttered.

Steve came up to him and accepted the shirt and pants he passed over, running his eyes over the congregation carefully as the SHIELD agents swarmed and started handcuffing the cultists. Tony popped open his face plate and watched with him.

“It’s over.” Steve said with grave finality.

Tony looked over and quirked an eyebrow, keeping his tone deliberately light. “Dumping me already, Rogers? And here I thought you’d be the ‘till death do us apart’ type, I’m crushed, really.”

Steve blinked. “Wh-what? No!” Tony gave him his best devastated look and Steve flushed and stammered, “I wouldn’t - Tony - you are doing this on purpose!”

“You mean you were just using me, after all?” Tony managed to keep a mostly straight face (and the devastated look, even though the urge to snicker was rapidly getting overwhelming). Steve looked flustered, which totally served him right for inflicting the Sad Puppy Face on the team all the time. “Steve...”

“Oh, shut up, you.” Steve hooked a finger between one of the sliding joints on the chest of the armor, between the shoulder and neck, and pulled Tony’s face close. In the armor, Tony had to tilt his face down just slightly. “I meant this,” Steve waved a hand at the cultists and the robots, “is over. But this...” he paused, peered at Tony through his eyelashes. Tony knew he was grinning like an idiot, and didn’t care. Steve grinned back, pressed a kiss against his lips, and whispered, “This has just begun.”

**

End


End file.
